Posts Tagged ‘television’

#EverySimpsonsEver Showed Me the Show’s Second Golden Age

Posted: September 2, 2014 in Meat Me @ Camera 4
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by @anarchyroll
9/2/2014

552 episodes spread out over 25 years is an achievement almost beyond description in the entertainment world/business. The Simpsons can claim to be the greatest cartoon and greatest sitcom of all time. I grew up in an era and media market where the show had syndicated reruns airing two to three times a day, five days a week. I can quote more episodes, word for word, than any human being should.

The show’s universally agreed upon “prime” is between 1993 and 1998. Those are the years when every episode of every season was a home run let alone a hit. Starting in 1999 the show, in my opinion became more hit than miss. The rise of South Park and Family Guy, along with stagnation saw the consistency steadily decline during the first half of the 00s.

The Simpsons Movie came out in 2007 and was an adult, comedy, cartoon tour de force. It was everytIhing a fan of the franchise could have wanted or hoped for from a movie that at the time was 20 years in the making. I was told that the seasons that aired after the movie were akin to the show’s prime years from those I knew who never stopped watching the show during its lean years.

The Every Simpsons Ever marathon on FXX was an opportunity to rediscover classics of the golden years and discover new classics of recent years. 552 episodes airing 24 hours a day for 12 consecutive days, what a concept. The marathon was used to promote the upstart FXX network itself, the FXNow streaming content app, the new season of The Simpsons, and The Simpsons-Family Guy crossover episodes that both debut at the end of the month.

I partook in some binge watching during the marathon. The highlights for me where;

  • Getting to see my two favorite episodes of all time
    • Tree House of Horror V (Season 6, Episode 6)
    • You Only Move Twice (Season 8, Episode 2)
  • Discovering the show’s second golden age

The seasons that have come after the movie, especially season’s 19 and 20, contained a quantity of quality episodes that stand up to the show’s prime in the mid 1990s. After losing its way from 1999-2005, the show truly found its mojo again. Some of the things the show changed after the movie came out are;

  • Improving the animation
  • Embellishing the opening and closing credits
  • Recalibrating the levels of pop culture vs political parody/satire
  • Spotlighting and increasing the relevance of all secondary characters

I am still surprised as I type, just how great the show became again. If you were a fan of the show for any stretch of time, the recent seasons are worth going out of your way to see. Considering FXX will be airing the show five days a week, with a four-hour block on Sundays, it won’t be the toughest task in the world to do.

The Simpsons is at it’s best when it hits the full range of emotions in a given episode. The show in its prime years of the 90s knew what buttons to press with which characters to make their audience laugh, cry, get happy, and/or upset. They truly found that stride again in the five seasons since the movie came out in 2007. Truly a second golden age as there were not just a couple, but rather a couple of dozen episodes that stand up to the best of the best from the mid 90s.

My only complaint is that the marathon aired during the last week of summer rather than in the middle of winter. I’m sure myself and the millions of others who partook in the marathon of marathons would have preferred seeing snow and ice outside as opposed to sunny skies and mid 70s.

Formally Studying the #Art of #Film & #Video Made me Less of a Cynical Critic

Posted: July 6, 2014 in Meat Me @ Camera 4
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by @anarchyroll
7/5/2014

While getting my BA I took a decent amount of film classes. Between film, television, and video studies I took eight classes that focused on the history of or making of the electronic visual medium(s).

I used to be quite the amateur, wannabe, cynical critic of movies. I assumed that knowing the history, terminology, etc would make me an even sharper critic since I would have actual knowledge to go with my sarcasm and self-proclaimed high level of taste. Instead the opposite happened.

Learning about the visual art of film making from misé en scene, cinematography, editing, set design, rule of thirds, set design, and the history of film from Edison and the Lumiere Brothers to the first talkies to the second golden age of American film in the 1970s gave me a true appreciation for almost all films and major motion pictures, even the bad ones. I really grew to appreciate the effort that goes into making a movie/television show.

That doesn’t mean that I confuse shit for steak, but I often see the good in the bad films, and rather than spend time, effort, energy, and emotion throwing shade at a lackluster film, I just follow the “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all” paradigm.

I was and still am completely blown away by how much goes into making a movie. Even bad movies, even Michael Bay movies.

I thought studying film would turn me into a film snob who only liked avant-garde, black and white, indie flicks.

Instead my taste in film didn’t really change at all. In fact, the blockbuster movies I tend to see in movie theaters, I came to enjoy even more. Why? Because film is a visual medium. Big budget blockbusters are basically 100% tailored to be visual stimulation. Heaven knows most of them aren’t going to pull on the emotional strings based on their script(s). When I learned that nothing that appears on-screen of a film’s final cut is an accident, my appreciation and fandom grew.

My educated eyes allowed me to be more easily sucked into James Bond and comic book blockbuster movies, rather than more skeptical of them.

What I really learned in studying the history and processes of film, television, video production, directing, editing, cinematography, script writing and acting besides the terminology is an appreciation of each. That is why when I read cynical reviews online and in print all I see is bitter, childish, ego centered pouting by a failed artist/creator who now judges others. It’s why all of the film reviews I’ve posted on this blog have been pretty positive even though I have seen and written about some pretty underwhelming films.

I encourage anyone reading this to take a film history or art of film and video class. It will literally change the way you see what you see when you look at a screen, and that is a good thing.